Freewill
by Tabbykitty101
Summary: A death knight freed in the ashes of Icecrown searches for some meaning to his existence.  What path do you choose when all the world despises you?  Semi-continuation of characters from "Redemption".  Please R&R!
1. Acherus

_Author's Note: This story is more or less a continuation of characters that first appeared in "Redemption: Warlock of the Light", also published here on . However, I tried to write this episode so that you don't need to have read the previous to get the gist of what's going on. I urge you to check out the previous one though, if you'd like an alternate take on the battle in Icecrown Citadel! Please read and review…reviews make the starving writer write faster!_

Alexander Lightbane slammed against the putrid stone walls of the dueling ring, relishing the shock and frissons of pain radiating out across his back. He coughed and spat eagerly, shoving himself forward. "Again!"

The massive abomination in the center of the ring gave a grotesque mewl of acknowledgment; its three meaty hands already whirling their instruments of destruction. The stitched horror towered over the death knight, its zipper-like face drawn in a riotous grin. Lightbane swung hard, slamming his fist into the whirling hook. The brief pain fired his eyes. It was a taste of the sweet oblivion, the endless echoing rage that he craved tantalizing his soul. He was unaware of the speed of his movements, or the blood that flew from every encounter with the monstrosity's weapons. There was nothing but the whiff of a close kill drifting in his nostrils.

_I don't understand why you subject yourself to this_.

As if a spotlight had been switched on, Lightbane felt his concentration wavering. The sweet rage drained off, leaving him exposed. His eyes flickered to the side, to the ghostly presence that dogged his steps. The abomination took quick advantage, slamming Lightbane back against the stones. He coughed deeply, black fluids spraying from his mouth. The shadowy figure clapped its hands.

_Bravo, death knight!_

"If you would just shut up for once," Lightbane growled. The abomination scratched its face with a hooked hand, managing to tear several new holes in its stitched face.

"Corpulous done?" it growled. Lightbane wiped his face and nodded brusquely. The abomination picked up its worn sack of molded food and drinks and ponderously waddled out of the ring. Lightbane picked up a wadded piece of torn muslin, slowly wiping the ichor off his bruised frame. Now that the ring was clear, other death knights were coming forward to make use of the sparring facilities.

_Day after day you torture yourself, death knight. What are you avoiding?_

Lightbane ignored the taunting words as he left the arena. There was no torture in what he was doing; no injury that could be inflicted that was somehow more then his mere existence could speak to.

"Blasted paladin," he growled.

The ghost had been a paladin once, as he himself had been. Whereas Lightbane had been chosen to become one of the Lich King's true champions, the other had been left a wandering corpse on Icecrown glacier. If it hadn't been for his tampering with demonic magic, his annoying soul would have been part of Frostmourne and not here in Acherus. If it hadn't been for that damned white-haired woman…if he hadn't been assigned to guard her as she died…

Lightbane shook his head angrily. Dwelling on exactly how he'd come to be here was no help. In the end, he'd chosen to assist the Argent fools, and this was his reward.

He paused briefly on one of the terraces, gazing out over the putrid landscape far below. Acherus, home to the Ebon Blade, was his only respite now. It hovered over what once were the lush plains of Lordaeron; now host only to diseased creatures and rotting vegetation. The noxious stench would have sent the living into spasms. To him, it was the familiar iron-tinged scent of the plague labs of the Citadel.

Two guards mounted on skeletal chargers passed by, nodding briefly in his direction. If he had been living, Lightbane would have sighed. He was well-known here, for all the wrong reasons.

"They whisper about how I am a traitor," he growled. "That's _your_ fault, paladin!"

_You could have stayed with the Argent Crusade in Northrend_, the ghost replied, briefly floating into view, then disappearing through the pocked stone floor.

"The Argents were more then eager to have me move on. Traitors are traitors, no matter what the cause." At least Morgraine had given him sanction to come to the Ebon Blade's fortress. Yet even here, among his peers, there were whispers of how he had betrayed their maker. The Lich King remained their god and their devil. While they decried their curse, the death knights secretly clung to the old views of their supremacy in the world. They all mouthed the platitudes that had gotten them re-accepted into their various factions, but beneath the veneer still lurked the monsters unleashed by the fallen Prince.

Lightbane navigated the dark corridors with ease, finally reaching the torn bit of cloth screening his cubby from the rest of the ziggurat. He dropped down on the low stone bench inside, letting the drape fall back into place. Aside from his well-polished armor and sword, the cell was as bleak and lifeless as the fortress itself. He leaned back against the aged walls and ran a fingertip down the pulsing runes of his hooked sword. The hours would stretch away endlessly now, until tomorrow and his next sparring match.

"What a way to spend eternity," he grumbled, folding his arms.

_You could always go to the Hinterlands like you told her you would_.

Lightbane resisted the urge to glance up at his armor, and the small braided lock of hair tucked just inside the breastplate. He tried to ignore any thoughts that sprung up during the endless hours about her, or the events that led to his disgrace. He'd even tried to burn the silly lock of hair numerous times, but each time would end up tucking it back inside his armor. It was the thorn in his mind, not allowing him to sink into the oblivion of day to day.

_And here I thought you death knights were all about retribution_. The ghostly form slithered up from the floor, coalescing into the figure of an older man. Still dressed in his heavy armor, paladin Christof Holemhein glimmered brighter amid the shadows of Acherus then any ghost should have a right. Lightbane shifted his eyes to the black stone above the door, refusing to acknowledge the specter. Christof shook his head. _It's cowardly how you hide here_.

"Your insults mean nothing to me," Lightbane muttered. "I've heard them too many times in the last few months. Besides, why aren't you in Hearthglen, or Stormwind, or where ever the hell your woman is?"

_I would if I could, but it seems I'm stuck to you. And you know you can't hide behind Morgraine's skirts forever. One of these days you'll have to get back into the world._

"How many times do you have to keep reminding me?" Lightbane hissed. "I have _nowhere_ to go. I'm only here on sufferance. You and your damn woman screwed me out of the only home I had."

_When the citizens of Stormwind lost their home, they didn't hide in Lordaeron for eternity, just because they were suffered to be there. They returned and reclaimed their home. They did amazing deeds throughout the world. You can be more then what the Lich King made you in to._

"Rah, rah, rah," Lightbane said bitterly.

_You must have been a worthless excuse for a paladin_, the ghost muttered. His form winked out. Lightbane closed his eyes and frowned. As much as he hated to admit it, the damned ghost was right. Every day he punished himself in the training arena; fighting with little armor and no weapons, always seeking more and more difficult opponents to provoke a response. The pain helped drown out the feeling of inertia that had gripped him since the Lich King's fall. From the day he'd been left in that silly tent with a small lock of hair as a reward, he'd been mired in doubt. He couldn't move forward. He was simply a weapon left to rust.


	2. The Offer

A raspy cough interrupted his musing. Lightbane opened his eyes, the creak of his joints signaling that several hours had passed. The drape twitched back to reveal one of the few death knights he'd actually struck a rapport with. Like him, Mogred was one of the recently freed who'd come to Acherus. The stooped form grinned, every tooth showing in his rotted face.

"Lightbane," he rasped. "I knew I'd find you here."

"Mogred," he nodded in greeting. Mogred was vile-looking forsaken. He was fond of boasting how he could have had his heartiness restored, but preferred his rotted visage for invoking terror in his enemies. Holes opened on both sides of his face any time he spoke, revealing grimy gray teeth and a blackened tongue. Bones strung with vibrant sinew winked beneath his armor. He was a skilled fighter, and after several matches the two had become friendly. Lightbane glanced at Mogred's flickering blue-white eyes. Well, as friendly as two monsters could be.

"Walk with me, Lightbane. I have a proposition."

Lightbane stood, absently pulling on a ragged shirt before following the hunched forsaken out into the halls. Mogred chuffed softly to himself, drumming his bony fingers on his blackened armor. The two threaded their way through the ziggurat, finally exiting onto one of the many terraces. Night was falling over the Plaguelands, leaving the sky a vivid leprous indigo. Mogred stood at the railing, chuffing deeply at the putrid air.

"I've had interesting news from below."

"You're rarely in this good of a mood," Lightbane said drily. "You didn't happen to nip down and find some previously undiscovered band of Scarlets, did you?"

Mogred threw his head back with a cackle. "I wish, my friend. Too long have I been here, away from the rich screams of the terrified masses. Ah, Lightbane," he chuckled, "I know we share that enjoyment. The deep satisfaction from watching your enemy's blood spill, there's nothing quite like it."

"I do not regret anything performed in his service," Lightbane muttered. At the edge of his vision, a translucent shape billowed from the floor. _Not now_, he growled. A small glowing ball formed, hovering at the corner of his eye.

"We are the lucky ones! We exist to make the world pay for all that was done to us!" Mogred tilted his head. "Some of our brethren have recently returned from the glorious Undercity. Have you ever seen the wondrous vaults, or beheld the perfection of Lady Sylvanas?"

"I know only what we were told at the Citadel." Lightbane wracked his brain. The Undercity had once been Lordaeron's proud capital before Arthas had returned from Northrend. It was now an abode of the dead; the freed undead lead by the banshee queen Sylvanas Windrunner. They were allied with the forces of the Horde, from what he could recall.

"I served in his army when Quel'Thalas fell. I saw the Dark Lady rise as his banshee, and then as his bane. She understands us, my friend. She knows our thirst for vengeance. All the others who scrabble over Azeroth see us as a blight to be destroyed. Our survival means joining with those who understand."

Lightbane grunted noncommittally, warily eyeing the coalescing vapor at the rail. He honestly didn't care to exchange one yoke for another. Horde or Alliance, the two could rip each other to ribbons. He vaguely felt that when he was alive, he cared more about such things.

"Now that Arthas is dead, the Lady reaches out to us, Lightbane. She calls for us to fight under her banner. Glory in destruction can be ours, if we go to her."

"Morgraine would not approve."

"Morgraine doesn't care what we do in Azeroth, as long as we put up swords in Acherus." Mogred hissed eagerly. "He dwells in the stew of his own revenge. _WE_, Lightbane, _WE_ are the swords who thirst for blood. The Dark Lady offers us an endless font to slake our thirst." He tapped his chest. "I, for one, have decided. I am going to the Undercity to pledge myself to her."

Abruptly an image rose in Lightbane's mind, of fell-green eyes and long white hair, and the lightest touch of lips against his cold skin. He glanced away from Mogred's frenzied face and out into the deepening night, afraid the other knight could see into his mind. He tried to will the image away, even as the ghostly paladin shape shook its head at him from the railing.

_You may not care about Horde or Alliance, but will she care what you do?_

"I don't know," he murmured. Mogred spread his arms wide, gesturing at the festering stones around them.

"This is a way-station, Lightbane. A place to train, not a place to hide. Azeroth is ripe to be plundered. What could be a more fitting revenge then to force the world to bow to us?" Mogred's blackened tongue whipped across his torn lips. "Or is it that you wish to return to the Alliance…the Alliance that would see you as a murderer…barely a step away from the Lich King himself?"

"You know I don't care for the Alliance, or the Horde for that matter."

"Then come with me, Lightbane. See what the Lady has to offer us. We share her curse, and we should share in her revenge. Come with me at least as far as Anderhol."

"Anderhol?"

Mogred nodded. "Only the first in a series of skirmishes ordered by the Dark Lady. The Alliance and the Argent Crusade have been trying to retake the Western Plaguelands. Kolitira Deathweaver leads the forces of the Horde to block their efforts. What better way to prove ourselves then by shedding a little holier-then-thou blood?" Mogred cackled. "Paladin blood is so sweet, and flows so prettily…like liquid rubies dripping off our blades."

Lightbane stiffened. Those words had been said to him once before, during his final moments of life. Spat from the lips of a frizzy-haired woman, her pike hovering above his still-beating heart. _Paladin blood is so sweet_, she'd hissed.

_This is wrong, all wrong_. Christof's ghost looked worried. _This is not the way to re-enter the world. You're not a creature of revenge anymore. You are your own man._

Lightbane smiled, turning back to Mogred. The forsaken was grinning widely through every hole in his tepid skin. "Well, my friend?"

"I'm in. When can we leave?"

Mogred slapped Lightbane on the shoulder. "As soon as we gather the some supplies and pay our respects to Morgraine. You'll love the Undercity, Alexander. It's the closest thing to home since the Citadel."

Lightbane nodded, turning back towards his cubby. "I'll get my armor and meet you in Morgraine's chamber." Mogred cackled and saluted before fading into the shadows. As Lightbane turned, he caught the ashen figure of the paladin still standing at the rail. Christof no longer gleamed brightly. In fact, he looked pallid and weak, as if even the most timorous light could banish him. The death knight felt the forced smile slip from his lips.

"I need to get out in the world again, right? No more hiding? That is what you've been harping on for two months. I am my own man, just as you said."

_You won't learn. You refuse to be anything more then a tool for whoever grasps your handle and makes you go._

Lightbane blinked, but the landing was empty. The paladin was gone. He frowned and headed into the depths of Acherus, eager to get into his armor.

_I make my own decisions, damn it. This could be exactly what I need._


End file.
